Monday, February 16, 2009

The Pursuit for Love - Very Briefly and Shortly

The recent Hunt For love has a few (dubious) distinctions.

Never before in any hunts have we come across so many indicators of Briefly and Shortly. We counted 11 of them peppered along the route. Mind you, these are indicators NOT to mean the the brief or short version of the words. Captain Love had a very different usage for them here; they are used as acrostic or initial indicators. That got us stuck initially right at the start of the first sector which started us hunting for eleven questions altogether! Luckily only briefly, as we later solved the "dubious" indicator in one of the questions and that newfound knowledge helped us solve all other questions that applied the same or similar indicator.

I'm sure many will agree that the Captain can now claim the record for the most frequent use of the initial (???) indicator "shortly", "brief" and "briefly", so much so that a regular hunter dubbed this the "underwear" hunt! If you think this is funny, wait till you hear about my other colleague's supposedly "romantic" outing in the Klang Valley, if he decides to blog about it.

Here are some of the "brief "questions :-

Q: First of today in recalling brief couple's joy.
Ans: JVC.


Q: Break up of a brief Grand Taj Mahal.
Ans: MGT @ Million Gold Trading.

The Captain's favourite question :-

Q: Ego cell broken briefly making couples split.
Ans: College MCS.

You want more ? How about this "schoolboy" question (according to one regular).

Q: A park for briefly making us humbly initiate brotherhood among humans.
Ans. Taman Muhibah.

This question is the Captain's pride :-

Q: Part of bike menace confuse direction on untidy attire.
Ans: Rempah Ratus.


Because the hunt was relatively easy for most, the battle for the top position was therefore fiercely fought. Regulars resorted to all sorts of trickery to cut down on mileage since that was the final tie-breaker; some hunted on foot, some tried reverse driving and as for us, we parked the furthest from finish control and walked in order to save some precious meters. In the end, 4 teams still tied in mileage (surely another first in any treasure hunt!), 3 teams scored full on the road (with one dropping a treasure) and another 3 teams dropped only 1 question each.



Hunt for Love results
(Full score: 130 pts)

1st : Chai Koh Khai, Margaret Sha, Teoh Cheow Teong (130)
2nd : Mohan Campos, Ruben Chelliah, Angie Chelliah (130)
3rd : Steven Arockiaraj, Sumita Devadas (127)
4th : Wong Chiang Chuen, Claire Chin, Julie Tan, Goh Teck Koon (127)
5th : Haji Suhaimi, Loh Chee Kwan, Tommy Ng (127)
6th : Yeap Heng Boon, K. Pavananthan, Lily Loh, Shandra Dass (125)

20 comments:

2 Romans 1 Impostor said...

Unless the odometer is broken, I somehow feel that reverse driving will pile on the kms rather than the opposite.

Anonymous said...

Unless it's an old Proton Saga. Trust me, I lost a bet on that!

Cornelius said...

A very sad story.

While some of the CoCs are trying very hard to improve on the technical aspects of the clues, the Captain is "teaching" all the wrong stuff.

May I suggest that the Captain make an effort - I mean try really hard - to learn the cryptic clueing rules, so that he can then produce something decent. Not outstanding!... just decent would do. At least do it for the sake of the new hunters.

Fortunately, the regular hunters were able to "solve" those questions anyway even though they were wrongly set. I just hope that the new hunters did not consider this hunt as a learning experience. Otherwise they will all get into big time trouble when they hunt in other quality hunts.

But I can just imagine the laughters among the regular hunters. I can see it all in my mind now - I'm seeing heads shaking. If I were there, I would have laughed out loud too! HAHAHA!

But in the end, I'd be really pissed for spending so much money for such a hunt.

BlogCe5nT said...

Dear Captain Love and Company.

This is an open letter to invite you to let us help you.

We rather be spending our energy and time in helping you than watching you slide down the scale and frustrating the hunting community further.

We are sincerely very keen to encourage good clerking and if personal help is the way for you and your team - we cannot be more honoured to extend ours.

Just spend a good 4 hours session of dialogue with us on one good, free weekend at StarBucks or Coffee Bean - and we will be glad to share with you, tips and ways that will help to do better clue setting or at least how to continue to improve. Call it a Q&A session for budding COCs if you like.

If you already have a mentor today - then I think you better review that relationship. It does not seem to be working well.

Maybe you have someone else whom you prefer to turn to as "new mentors" - that is fine too. We hope they are those who share good principles too.

If you haven't got one - please do adopt a mentor - it will be good for you. We will happy to make a few recommendations, if you prefer.

You are already very good with organisation and innovation in terms of variety in event format/content - but the hunting community demands consistent good quality in clueing that entertains, educate and intellectually challenges. And not those that insult our intelligence.

I am not being arrogant here. Just being sincere and beginning to feel desperate about the situation. We may not be the best in this game, but we certainly are at the upper and further end of the scale than where you are standing today.

We hope by extending a helping hand to you, we can pull you closer to where we are or even better. Anything good for the hunting fraternity - we will support! Likewise, anything not good for it - we will not hesitate to discourage. That's our Mission.

We wish you the best.

P/s: This is a one-time offer but has no expiry date.

Cornelius said...

BlogCe5nt,

That is very generous of you... and for that I take off my hat to you, my friend.

In my opinion, the Captain is doing more harm than good for the sports - especially to the new hunters.

I am all out for creativity and new twists in hunt questions. In fact I myself try to introduce some into my own questions. But to do so by blatantly going against the rules is just too much.

A number of people have been criticising the Captain after his past hunts. Some were doing it behind his back, of course. And I readily admit that I am one of his most vocal critics!

There is nothing personal in my criticisms - I criticise questions by other CoCs too. Frankly, I'm happy to see that this lately it's getting to be increasingly difficult to find anything to criticise about - we have lesser grammatical errors; lesser typos (except for the semi-colons in the Bull Hunt which were not typos at all!); lesser inaccuracies from the technical point of view. If that has something to do with my doing somehow, then I'd consider that I've achieved my objective.

The same, however, can't be said of the Captain's questions. His performance declines in every hunt.

I don't know if it's because of the Captain's brilliant marketing skills or if KL hunters were just plain suckers, but the Captain has always been able to attract the crowd. So perhaps there was no reason to pay any attention to our comments.

However, even suckers have their limits. And looking at the response in his latest hunt, I think it's time that the Captain pause to ponder on our comments.

We call upon the Captain to seek help on setting hunt questions. It's kinda late in the day, but it's still not too late. I have a feeling that it's gonna be extremely hard to attract hunters for his future hunts no matter how much juice the Captain pours into his questions. He must do something now!

BlogCe5nT said...

Crowd size and popularity is no measure of quality success.

A small bunch or large bunch of monkeys gathered together enjoying a party is still a bunch of monkeys.

We like to see more and more COCs in the Hunting Community - because, they will create more and more hunts for everyone. Each have their own network and contacts. The year when we have at least one open hunt every Sat and Sun in the country would be a great measure of success for the Home Sport.

But we like to be able to go to more and more of the right kind of party each time. Not those that make monkeys out of us.

renroc said...

With regular practice, some have mastered the art of 'GrabNGo', especially when the loot is labelled 'Grab Mi' !

Cornelius said...

Oh! Tell me about it, renroc!

I also commented on Alex's style, but technically speaking the indicators etc were all in accordance to the books. A bit of variations here and there are OK as far as I am concerned, as long as the CoC doesn't violate the cryptic rules.

But although I performed badly in the Bull Hunt, I was very happy nonetheless because the quality of the questions were good. When the setter can set a question asking specifically for a "yellow substance", when actually he wanted a black substance, then you know that that is a brilliant trick! It's those kind of questions that can make you want more and more.

kkchai said...

It is gross injustice and unfair to just pick on the Captain's questions. Perhaps it my fault for failing to mention, but credit must be given for his effort in organising hunt efficiently. The hunt was carried out smoothly and incident free. The Captain actually did a very good job in answers presentation too. On the side, the "word" game was great fun and we all had a good laugh. Captain is also the most amicable CoC around, hardly ever saw him without a smile on his face. True, there are some shortcomings in his questions, but that's his style ! We simply can't expect him to live up to your expectation, to each his own, my friends. Some of you are very picky with their hunts or perhaps some felt that the style is beneath them, but for me, I am grateful there is a hunt and you can always count on me for support. We are a very small community we must therefore scratch each other backs in order for the treasure hunt industry to survive and flourish. Having said that, for those have not yet sign up for our inaugaral open hunt on 1/3/09, now is the time do your part and it's for a good cause.

Cornelius said...

kkchai,

I'm fairly certain that nobody can accuse me of picking only on the Captain's questions. (Smile)

I've been commenting on questions set by other CoCs too. To take the recent Bull Hunt, for example, I commented on the inclusion of additional words in the clues which were used solely for the purpose of deceiving the solvers, but played no role in assisting to derive the answers. And as for the HRU Challenge #2, I raised the matter of the over-usage of word substitutions. Those are, however, the styles of the respective CoCs. The questions were mainly technically sound.

In the case of the Captain's questions, they're wrong on technical grounds. We're not even talking about style here! I think this was what he meant when BlogCe5nt said "... those (questions) that insult our intelligence" and "... those (questions) that make monkeys out of us."

We all want to have the variety, and creativity - fresh ideas, if you like. We all want to progress and develop the sports further. But the Captain is not progressing and developing. He is making a mockery of this sports, and maybe even confusing the new hunters in the process.

We are not only pleading him to improve for the sake of the hunting fraternity. It's also good for himself. It is something when the hunters are laughing at the tricks when the answers are revealed. But it's something else when the hunters are laughing at him.

Marsha said...

I must say that Captain did make a commemndable job out of making the hunt a thematic one. I think it is not an easy feat when you have to craft questions out of a selected and limited range of available signboards in order to adhere to a theme. For a good portion of his hunt questions and all six treasures to be centred around the theme of love, i think he had done a good job.

I think Captain is one CoC who is ever willing to listen to comments and feedbacks from hunters and then try to improve on them. I'm sure his mistake of using the erroneous indicator was an oversight by him, and wasn't his intention to teach the wrong things to the new hunters. Comparing with his earlier questions from Triple K, I think he has tried to tidy up on the the surface reading of his questions, as I noticed that they are better simplified without too many redundant words or inter-connecting indicators. If he continues to improve on them as well as employ some tricks of cryptic clueing I think he will be fine.

He will still have my support for his next hunt! :)

BlogCe5nT said...

There you go, Captain Love! Brush up on the cryptic side of your questions (stick to good rules and practices - do more serious research here or get help here) and you will have the full stamp of approval from everyone who honestly cares (why else would we bother?)!

Cornelius said...

Yes, Marsha, I can easily believe that HRU would support the Captain's hunts.

I can still remember the very first time I clerked an open hunt. Without much hope, I sent an SMS to KK and VK. I couldn't believe it when HRU obliged the invitation. To spend lots of money for the air passage and lodging, all for a hunt by an unknown new-comer, that's really something!

But that's the point I'm trying to make. Hunters can support the Captain, but he must do his part to justify that undying support. Not all teams are like HRU which has a long staying power. After all, they are paying good money for a decent hunt. If they keep getting below-par hunts, they are bound to give up sooner or later. That's why we urge the Captain to work harder on his questions; he shouldn't take the hunters' support for granted. Whatever he's done so far doesn't seem to be enough.

On another matter, someone was asking me if he has improved on his tulips. Did he at least provide tulips at all? Or he still doesn't have time for tulips?

Claire said...

There are still no tulips for this hunt, but words (or the lack of it) used to describe directions. Personally I'd still prefer tulips, or at least more landmarks.

I had lots of fun and laughter during and after the hunt. Agree with Marsha that the Capt did a good job at keeping with the theme. But it would be better if the correct 'indicators' are used in questions... and more variety please! That said, if "briefs" weren't used, then we wouldn't have that "seluar dalam" joke. ;)

BlogCe5nT said...

I read our Captain Love as some one who loves the written word more than graphics (his safety blanket?).

Did he spend another 15 to 20 minutes amending his "tulips" at the final briefing?

If he has not - then he is getting very close to perfecting the "Narrative Tulips". You never know, what this could lead to one day!

Cornelius said...

There is another possible explanation (which, I'm convinced, is the most accurate one) for the non-graphic tulips. The Captain doesn't know how to do it, so he has no choice but to use the essay-type tulips, because that's the only ones he can come up with. These essay-type tulips can then be adopted in all of his hunts under the excuse of "style" - his "style". This is in spite of feedbacks from hunters who prefer the graphical tulips.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and conduct a poll on your sidebar on which type of tulips is preferable (I'd love to conduct the poll myself, but I'm just too dumb and lazy to figure out how... hehehe). And then once it's proven that the majority prefer the graphical tulips, let's see if the Captain will actually take the trouble to learn and use it in his next hunt. If not, then we will know that the poor chap goes around after each hunt asking for feedbacks, and when he gets some, ignores them magnificently!

Anonymous said...

Does this mean that all those questions from previous hunts were not good questions??

Huh???

BlogCe5nT said...

Hi, Faye

We like to help you with your question. But I think it is too general for us to do so now.

You are meeting up with the teams tomorrow? Maybe you could catch up with some of them and see if they can help you with your "doubts"?

Anonymous said...

Can i get the questions and answered on today's hunt Challenge emailed to me at baby_panda10@hotmail.com?

Thanks a lot!
It was a good first training

BlogCe5nT said...

Hi, Faye

I am sure we will be sharing the answers with everyone soon. The team just need a short break after all the hard work.